Keep up with news and features of interest to the reptile and amphibian community on the kingsnake.com blog. We cover breaking stories from the mainstream and scientific media, user-submitted photos and videos, and feature articles and photos by Jeff Barringer, Richard Bartlett, and other herpetologists and herpetoculturists.

Tuesday, December 18 2012

Is there a new discovery that might become a weapon in the battle against chytrid fungus?

Chytrid was identified in the 90s as a threat to the existence of frogs and other amphibians, and since then, scientists estimate that more than 300 species have been wiped out by it. A current National Geographic article quotes conservation biologist as saying, "This pathogen is bad news. It's worse news than any other pathogen in the history of life on Earth as far as we know it."

One of the greatest challenges in understanding the fungus has been why it seems to persist in ponds even after all the frogs have died. Now, scientists say they may have at least part of that mystery solved:

Researchers saw it happen many times and were perplexed: If all of a pond's amphibians were wiped out, and a few frogs or salamanders came back and recolonized the pond, they would also die—even though there were no amphibians in the pond to harbor the disease.

One possible reason is that chytrid infects other animals. For a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Taegan McMahon, a graduate student in ecology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, looked at some possible suspects and focused on crayfish, those lobsterlike crustaceans living in freshwater.

[...]

The fungus seems to be able to dine on crayfish then leap back to amphibians when it gets a chance. No one knows for sure where the fungus originally came from or why it's been such a problem in recent decades, but this research suggests one way that it could have been spread. Crayfish are sometimes moved from pond to pond as fish bait and are sold around the world as food and aquarium pets.